Musical performance apparatus that emits musical performance tones and control tones for controlling an apparatus

Abstract

A musical performance apparatus is provided with a tone generation circuit 15 and a sound system 16 for emitting musical tones of musical instruments and control tones corresponding to musical score data SD which controls a musical score display apparatus 20. The tone generation circuit 15 has a tone volume adjustment circuit 15a3 which changes tone volume of only the musical tones in accordance with player's instruction and maintains tone volume of the control tones at a certain tone volume. The tone generation circuit 15 also has a pan adjustment circuit 15a4 which localizes the control tones so that the control tones will be emitted only from a certain speaker. Furthermore, the musical performance apparatus is designed such that the control tones are formed only of frequency components included in a certain high frequency band. Furthermore, the tone volume of frequency components which are included in frequency components representative of the musical tones and are further included in the certain high frequency band is controlled to be lower than the tone volume of the control tones.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to a musical performance apparatus which emits musical performance tones of a musical instrument such as melody and accompaniment, and control tones representative of control information for controlling an external apparatus.[0003]Description of the Related Art[0004]Conventionally, as described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-316356, for example, there is a known musical performance apparatus which outputs signals obtained by superimposing MIDI data on digital audio data to a tone generating module. As for the conventional musical performance apparatus, MIDI data is embedded in the least significant bit of digital audio data. As described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2007-104598, furthermore, there is a known information transmitting apparatus which emits control tones for controlling an external apparatus from a speaker.SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION[0005]However...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012]By this configuration, the tone volume changing portion changes the tone volume only of a part in charge of the musical tone but maintains the tone volume of the control tone at a certain tone volume (e.g., at the maximum tone volume). Furthermore, the tone pitch changing portion changes the tone pitch only of the musical tone, but maintains the certain tone pitch of the control tone (i.e., tone pitch of a tone formed only of a frequency component included in the high-frequency band). Furthermore, the tone color changing portion changes the tone color only of the musical tone, but maintains the certain tone color of the control tone (i.e., tone color of the tone formed only of the frequency component included in the high-frequency band). Therefore, the musical performance apparatus according to the present invention insures high accuracy of decoding control data by an external apparatus to reliably control the external apparatus. Consequently, the musical performance apparatus can easily transmit control data to the external apparatus without the need to connect to the external apparatus with a cable. Compared with a case of the musical performance apparatus connected with the external apparatus with a cable, furthermore, restrictions on the arrangement of the external apparatus can be relaxed. Furthermore, because the control tone is formed only of frequency components included in the certain high-frequency band (e.g., a narrow frequency band around 17.64 kHz), users can rarely recognize generated control tones in spite of the tone volume of the control tones being fixed at the maximum. Therefore, the control tones will not hinder musical performance.

[0015]In this case, the respective control tone volumes are specified so that interference between the control tones will be reduced as much as possible. Therefore, the musical performance apparatus according to the present invention prevents degradation in accuracy of decoding control data by the external apparatus.

[0016]A further feature of the present invention is that tone volume of a frequency component which is included in frequency components of the musical tone and is further included in the certain high frequency band is lower than the tone volume of the control tone. Because the musical performance apparatus according to the present invention can reduce interference between the musical tone and the control tone, the musical performance apparatus further enhances the accuracy of decoding of the control data by the external apparatus.

Problems solved by technology

However, because the above-described least significant bit represents a small change in the amplitude of sound signals, embedding MIDI data in the least significant bit will cause little influence on sound quality, but decoding of the MIDI data will be susceptible to interference.

When signals output from the musical performance apparatus are interfered by noise, more specifically, there can be cases in which the tone generating module cannot decode MIDI data.

Without using any cables, as in the case of the information transmitting apparatus described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2007-104598, it is difficult to allow the musical performance apparatus to convert the signals into acoustic signals by use of a speaker to emit tones, and to allow the tone generating module to receive the acoustic signals with a microphone to decode MIDI data in accordance with the received acoustic signals.

Therefore, the conventional musical performance apparatus not only requires a user to connect the musical performance apparatus to the tone generating module with a cable but also restricts the position at which the tone generating module is placed.

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